Bright Like Fire
by NoodlesandPie
Summary: Basically just a one-shot, with plenty of angst. Quite short, inspired by a quote out of the novel Fangirl ("Hair so bright it burns your retina, one cone at a time")


**Authors Notes: Hey, this is my first Avengers fic. I thought it up in Maths, and got weird looks for writing it on the back of the newsletter.**

**Word Count: 768**

**Warnings: Two swear words, and I guess you could say it has references to sex?**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Avengers, or Fangirl, the novel I was inspired by.**

Hair so bright it burns your retinas. One fucking cone at a time. It's a flame in the darkness, the focus of your vision. You blink.

As she turns away, tilting her face up to rain, opening up like a flower blooming, you take a minute to thank God for curves on women. She's rolling hills, a winding river, a twisting mountain pass.

Her teeth glint like the edge of a knife as she smiles. Dangerous. Deadly. Beautiful. You never were good at walking away from a challenge.

You are in a parking lot, waiting for Tony to pick you up. He said he'd be there in ten minutes. Over half an hour ago. You sigh, think: _Asshole._

Still, she's in a rare moment of happiness, emotion. You wouldn't be surprised if she suddenly sprouted wings and took off, soaring above you, silhouetted in starlight.

She turns her face from the night sky. Comes closer. She smells of coffee and bonfires. You breathe her in. You could drown here. Drown in her. Drown in the rain pouring from the sky. She looks at you, and her eyelashes cast shadows on her cheeks. She would look like a marble statue, cracked yet perfect, except for the fact that she is so _alive_. You can see the life thrumming through her, in veins, arteries, hear it pounding through her skull. There shouldn't be this much space between you. You want to drag her to you, crush her against your body, feel the rainwater on her lips drip into your mouth, run your fingers through her hair, watch yourself ignite.

Instead, you study a scar on her chin. A little knick, probably done by a small knife of some sort. You marvel at the fact that each mark on her body has a tale behind it, stories etched onto her skin. You want to read them all.

She tilts her head at you, and it's a great gust of wind, a punch in the stomach, a narrowing of your vision, this realization. You snap out of it. She was speaking, and you weren't listening.

"What?" Your voice breaks the pattern of rainfall hitting the ground around you, and you wince. She laughs. You can see the muscles in her throat working.

She comes closer still, her lips near your ear. The hairs on your arms stand to attention. You lean in closer.

When it comes, her whisper is slow, light, honey dripping into your ear.

"Why so miserable?"

You want to say that it's her. She makes you sad and ecstatic in equal measure. She starts off an ache in your heart, and you miss her even as she stands right next to you. You want her.

You say this instead: "I'm not, Nat. Just tired.", and regret it almost instantly. You want to pour your confessions into her chest, write your secrets on her ribcage. You want her to reach through your middle and hold your heart in the palm of her hand. She already is. She just doesn't know it.

"Getting old, grandpa?"

You smile, and it hurts. Shatters your face apart. You want to melt into the tarmac beneath you.

It flickers, sometimes, this thing between you, but never goes out entirely. Sometimes it roars, a raging cry, and you cant breathe for the force of it.

But you can't feed it. You have to watch it flicker and die. It has to, eventually. You've had enough crushes to know that. But it has been years, and every month, day, hour, minute, second, the ache pumps through you like blood. Like life. You want to snuff it out, snuff the light of her from your vision. Don't play with fire, everyone knows that.

Except you, it seems. But you know love. You know the way it twists around your windpipe, cuts off your air. You know the way it hammers behind your eyelids as you lay on your bed in the dark. You know how it conjures shapes out of nothing, distracts you, makes itself seem brighter than it is. You know how it can jumble and rearrange your mind, your thoughts, until every fizzle of neurons in your brain sounds like its crying out for _her_.

You know this thing between you will get twisted, used against you both, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. It's happened before. You know this. That's why you take a step back. You know love is dangerous. You know love is lethal, fatal, a drowning mans cry for a lifeboat. And you, Clint Barton, know you are done for.

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